Patrick Stewart says there's a movie script about Jean-Luc Picard

Patrick Stewart first appeared as Jean-Luc Picard back in 1987, in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. After that came "four Star Trek movies of varying quality, the best one being [Star Trek: First Contact], as Stewart himself put it during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz.

Years later, Stewart returned to the role in the Paramount+ TV show Star Trek: Picard, which picked up with the storied starship captain in his retirement. “What was so interesting about Picard, and the main reason why I decided to commit to three seasons of it was that Akiva Goldsman talked to me about the changes that had happened in my life in the last 20 years," Stewart explained. "And he said, 'Were there any?' and of course, I said yes there were lots and lots and new journeys and new experiences and relationships. And he said, 'Exactly! Well that has also been Jean-Luc’s experience.' He’s not the same man. He’s no longer captain of the Enterprise. He was made an admiral. It became really desk work, which is not what he ever wanted to do. And now he’s back at home, living on his vinyard and seeming to be reasonably content. All that was an act. All that was Jean-Luc trying to pretend – as I think my father did – that everything was all right. But it wasn’t."

"So particularly the last season of Picard was extraordinary to perform because I was continually being faced, because of the wonderful job the writers did, with a different man. There was one wonderful moment I really enjoyed researching when Picard literally didn’t know what to do, how to deal with a situation. He was stunned by it. And watching him having to cope with that realization of ‘I’m old and I can’t work out how to deal with this’ was it was a fascinating process. So I enjoyed that."

Now in his 80s, you'd think that Stewart would be tiring of playing this character, but he sounds as energized as ever. In fact, during his time on the podcast, he revealed that he knew of "a script that is being written, but written specifically with the actor, Patrick [Stewart], to play in it...I’m so excited because it sounds like the kind of project where the experimentation that I want to do will be essential for this kind of material."

As confirmed by StarTrek.com, Stewart gave this interview back in November, so by this point the project may be further along than we've heard. We're not sure if it would be a new Star Trek movie to be released in theaters, or something more along the lines of Section 31, a TV Trek movie starring Michelle Yeoh destined for Paramount+.

And it's possible that this Picard movie might never materialize, but Paramount has been very open about making new Star Trek projects, so there's reason for fans to get their hopes up. In addition to Star Trek: Picard, in recent years we've gotten Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy, not to mention talk about continuing the Star Trek movie franchise with Chris Pine, or else making some new kind of Star Trek movie. Maybe the Picard film is that movie.

What's amazing is that, despite the world being full of Star Trek content of late, the franchise doesn't feel spread too thin, at least not yet. Strange New Worlds has been building a lot of buzz, and people are excited for the final season of Discovery to air on Paramount+ in April. We'll keep a look out to see how a potential Picard movie fits into this web.

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